


TEH Rewatch

by not_a_bit_good



Series: not-a-bit-good's Tumblr Meta [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Archived From Tumblr, Archived From not-a-bit-good Blog, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, EMP Theory, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, Meta, Meta Essay, Nonfiction, Originally Posted on Tumblr, TJLC | The Johnlock Conspiracy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2019-09-14 07:21:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16908633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_a_bit_good/pseuds/not_a_bit_good
Summary: IE bloody hell in hindsight it’s obvious what we’re seeing in this episode isn’t real





	TEH Rewatch

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://not-a-bit-good.tumblr.com/post/159350883879/teh-rewatch)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr [here](http://not-a-bit-good.tumblr.com/post/159350883879/teh-rewatch)  
> The meta is already finished. I might post interesting discussions that happened in the comments in later chapters.

I’m rewatching TEH after S4, with the mindset that S3 and S4 are Sherlock’s coma dream after he jumped for real from Bart’s rooftop

And. Holy shit! It makes so much sense!

1)  **The weird “coffee cup to John’s eyes” transition**. We knew that this was taken from [@ivyblossom](https://tmblr.co/m31tdBbP8XoE_QcDV-TIFhw)‘s  _“The Progress of Sherlock Holmes”_. We failed to notice that the fanfic opens on Sherlock  _dreaming_  that John has cups for eyes. EDIT 12 Oct 2017: To be faire it could also be an indication that the show we’re about to see has been filtered through a heteronormative filter (because Lestrade and Anderson are drinking coffee and coffee is straight), ie that Mary is a version of Sherlock that “no homo”es John and Sherlock’s relationship.

2) In the same scene with Lestrade and Anderson, the way the reporters who tell us Sherlock’s name has been cleared are filmed is… fucky, to say the least.  **Glitchy**. That’s  _weird_. 

3)  **The “how sherlock survived theories” parodies**. In all of them, Sherlock is awfully OOC. Why? Because Mofftiss were pointing out that Sherlock surviving the fall and not telling John is, in itself, OOC, because that would break John’s heart (which Sherlock knows since ASIB). Sherlock didn’t fake his death. SHERLOCK REALLY, ACTUALLY JUMPED, AND IS NOW IN A COMA BECAUSE OF HIS INJURIES.

4) Mycroft as one of Sherlock’s brain hemisphered gives… interesting insights into Sherlck’s psyche.

5) Sherlock just can’t stop thinking about John touching people’s genitals all day as a doctor – aka he’s jealous af of the women John had intimate contact with.

6)  **Sherlock never says why he didn’t tell John he was alive**. Hint: that’s because he’s dreaming, and everyone who’s seen  _Inception_  knows that one way to tell whether you are dreaming or not is retracing your steps as to how you got where you are. If you can’t, that means you are either amnesiac, or dreaming.

7) The last restaurant Mary, John and Sherlock visit on the night of Sherlock’s return is suspicious:  **the lighting is blue**. And there’s a useless blue screen on the far wall. Kinda reminds me of the  **glowing blue skull**  painting in s4.

8) Sherlock finds  ** _“How I did it”_ , a fake book allegedly written by Jack the Ripper**. Hm. The episode itself keeps trying to explain how Sherlock did “it” (ie faked his death). The answer is right fucking there: he didn’t. He really jumped. He’s dreaming, and his subconscious is trying to get him to realise that.

9) LESTRADE:  _“Please, insult away!”_. aka  **Lestrade taking as a compliment something that ought to be taken as an insult**. That’s so reminiscent of his characterisation in TAB, in which we  _know_  Sherlock is dreaming/hallucinating, I’m crying laughing. We were so  _blind_.

10) Dreamspeak.

11)  **The off-switch thing**. That’s just plain unbelievable, because that means anyone could deactivate the bomb. It’s in the terrorists interest that only they can deactivate it. Hence, rather than a switch, a  _code_  would be more credible.

12)  **Sherlock’s mind-palace is blown out of proportion**. Literally. Sherlock recreates a whole train station in his mind. That’s way different from the last time we saw him using it (THOB), where there was just text and images and sounds superposed to Sherlock’s hand movements in the real world. And every time the mind palace is used after that, it’s the same. Sherlock’s MP takes over Sherlock’s reality. So it should follow that the reality Sherlock is in, is his own mind.

13) Mary is dressed in red. And wearing earrings. Mary is a red herring (because she doesn’t exist and is the dream representation of one of Sherlock’s worst fears: John Watson marrying someone other than him – that’s literally her name: Mary Watson… Marry Watson.)

14) How come the little girl (again!) knows John is in the bonfire before it’s lit, but the crowd around her doesn’t. I mean… John can’t talk, or scream, or anything, so…. Is she a psychic? or something? (Eurus foreshadowing)

15) Sherlock’s parents. His dad doesn’t want to get a chain for his glasses…. because it’d be like Larry Grayson’s, a known gay celebrity? And Sherlock says that his parents’ being “ordinary” is a cross he has to bear… Hm. If that doesn’t spell homophobic parents I don’t know what does.

16)  _“Sometimes a deception is so audacious, you can’t see it even when it’s staring you in the face”_. Sherlock says, with his own reflection on his computer screen. Now, that obviously refers to TJLC… but that could also refer to the fact that Mofftiss have been dropping hints that what we are seeing is not real left and right. And that gets even more obvious in the following episodes.

17) Science fiction heart-shaped bomb. No, really. That thing would look more at home on the USS Enterprise than in a more “realistic” show like BBC Sherlock.

18) An abandoned/never actually built train station… with the lights on. And live electricity. I’m skeptical.

19) Sherlock’s explanation of what happened in TRF makes no sense. Sherlock clearly did not know what was going to happen on Bart’s rooftop, and I think that TEH, the whole episode, was his brain trying to find an explanation as to how Sherlock was still alive after jumping, and ultimately deluding itself into thinking Sherlock had planned everything (false memories are an oddly common phenomenon). Which led to Sherlock feeling guilty for breaking John’s heart intentionally (although the guilt could also be a sign of his subconscious feeling guilty for almost dying and still causing John pain)

20) What’s more, in Sherlock’s retelling of TRF, John never figures out that Sherlock is still alive right after he jumps. But this directly contradicts TRF: the fact that the camera “rights itself” and that John gets back up after feeling for Sherlock’s pulse, compounded by the fact that medical personal immediately takes Sherlock inside the hospital, strongly indicates that John  _knew_  Sherlock was still alive, because he’d felt his pulse.

21) Sherlock’s parents, part 2 : His dad refuses to buy himself a chain for his glasses because then he’d be imitating a gay celebrity. Mycroft (ie a part of Sherlock’s brain) suffers going through something his parents enjoy but he hates, because he promised them. And Sherlock says there’s nothing he can do to help.  _“You don’t understand the pain of it, the horror”_ , Mycroft says through the phone. And Sherlock hangs up on him. Now, of course, this scene is supposed to be funny, because Mycroft is talking about going to a musical (we hear the music through the phone’s speakers) as though it’s torture, but, remember: on BBC Sherlock,  **the funny moments are always used to hide something**. I read this as Sherlock having homophobic parents (you can look like a nice person and still be horribly homophobic). And I think Sherlock’s parents did something terrible that made Sherlock repress his sexuality. This is confirmed by things in the following episodes (TSOT and TFP come to mind, although it’s all shown through metaphors and Redbeard).

22) Sherlock voluntarily puts on his cap before facing the press  at the end of the episode. Exactly like in TLD.

23) The episode ends on Magnussen watching Sherlock save John from the bonfire, in what later turns out to be Magnussen’s MP. 1) Mind palaces do not work that way, you can’t recall something as visually precise as a video and 2) **the episode that depicts Sherlock’s return to London ends on a scene that happens entirely in the mind of one character. What’s more, this character is a (creepy) Sherlock mirror.**

Tags under the cut:

[@electricduster](https://tmblr.co/myJ8h8wPTKszuWBX5_rHWSQ), [@pawsoffmykitty](https://tmblr.co/muq8Ri2lkThdq-soWqpqMwg)


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